Len Prak, 18, of Stockton allegedly walked up behind 22-year-old John Poblete and stabbed him with a meat cleaver at the Whimsy Family Entertainment arcade near the food court around 5:15 p.m., a peak holiday shopping time, police said. Prak then wandered the mall smashing a display case at the Sunglass Hut kiosk and snatching a Christmas tree from another kiosk as blood dripped from the blade.

A man in line at a food-court restaurant tackled Prak when he returned to the food court. Prak was taken into police custody moments later.

Prak and Poblete did not know each other and had not been arguing before Poblete was stabbed, Stockton police spokesman Pete Smith said.

"As far as we know, it doesn't appear to be anything more than a random act of violence from a deranged person," Smith said.

Prak was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, vandalism, weapons charges and burglary and will undergo a psychological evaluation, Smith said.

Poblete, also of Stockton, was treated at St. Joseph's Medical Center for stab wounds and lacerations, police said. He was expected to recover. St. Joseph's Medical Center had no information to release Monday on Poblete's condition, hospital spokeswoman Jerri Randrup said, citing patient privacy laws.

Mall visitors described a chaotic scene after the attack, with shoppers fleeing the building as other patrons entered.

Several stores closed their roll-down security gates, leaving some customers inside and others outside where the assailant wielded the cleaver, said Taylor Loyd, a 29-year-old Stockton resident who entered the mall as people ran screaming from the arcade shortly after the stabbing.

"People were kind of corralled into this corridor where this man was," Loyd said.

Sherwood Mall manager Gayle Speare said the seven mall security guards on duty at the time of the attack moved shoppers out of the assailant's path and told stores to close their security gates.

"They did exactly what they were supposed to do," Speare said.

Loyd said he was surprised mall officials made no announcement to shoppers immediately after the attack. The scramble to move shoppers out of the area left little time for security guards to make an announcement, Speare said.

"They did the right thing," she said.

A videotape of the incident, which Speare said she reviewed, has been turned over to police. Speare would not say what the tape showed, citing mall policy.

Speare also would not say what type of training mall security guards receive to handle such situations, saying it is proprietary information.

"We do have a very safe and secure mall. This is a very unfortunate and isolated incident - certainly not what anyone would expect during a busy holiday season," she said.

Uniformed and undercover Stockton police officers supplement mall security, Speare said. Officers were at the Weberstown Mall across the street from the Sherwood Mall at the time of the attack, she said.

The unidentified man who tackled Prak will be nominated for one of the city's Citizen's Recognition Award, Smith said.